Duplicate ballot confusion; Kern County voter receives three ballots
Bakersfield, Calif (KBAK/KBFX) — UPDATE: The Kern County Elections Office confirmed the triple duplicate ballots were sent to the voter because he registered three different times. An employee from the elections office said the system can't determine those entries are the same person. While they are aware they may have sent out thousands of duplicate ballots, they are confident in the signature verification process if there is a question about the integrity of a ballot cast.
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With the governors shut down orders still in effect, all registered voters in California were sent a mail-in ballot for the election on Nov. 3, but just one day after the ballots went out and people are already questioning things.
Nicki Ehrlich from Tehachapi received five ballots in the mail today, which didn’t surprise her because she lives with her husband and had 3 adult children.
But when she looked closer, she found three of the ballots were addressed to her youngest son Joseph.
“I have no idea how that would happen,” Ehrlich said.
All three envelops have the same name and spelling and the same address. Ehrlich hasn’t opened them yet because they don’t have her name on them, so she’s not sure if every ballot is exactly the same, but she’s still concerned.
“I think everybody’s concern right now is the mail-in ballot issue if he got one or three, who else got three?” Ehrlich said.
Reports of duplicate ballots have come from all over the country.
Some counties cite clerical error, some computer error, but many times duplicate ballots contain the same unique barcode so it can't be counted twice.
In California with so many government entities registering people to vote, they've been bloating the voter database for years.
The Election Integrity Project says there are currently 13 California counties with more registered voters than eligible residents. They say it's one of the dozens of problems corrupting the state's election process.
In a statement, the group's president, Lina Paine, said they've received similar stories about duplicate ballots
“This election is going to be a tsunami of problems,” Paine wrote.
In the Ehrlich house, they're trying not to add to the confusion and because it's Joseph’s first election they're going to get the “I voted” sticker.
“He's not going to ballot all three. I think everyone should experience polling and putting that ballot in the box and getting the little “I voted” sticker,”
The Kern county elections office has not returned our request for an explanation on the duplicate ballots.
